Design of the xperia z shows is mixed. The build quality is great made of polyimide. The phone is waterproof and dustproof wow. But does it make sense in daily use. I guess not but it's a good safety measure. The design has no innovation. Just a simple piece a 5" piece of slab in your hand with sharp edges makes it uncomfortable to use.
Display is really sharp thanks to it's super pixel density and natural colours. But it's not the great overall. Sony used the low quality IPS TFT display in the phone and tried to emphasise with gimmicky opti-contrast results still the worst contrast and viewing angles in comparison to other phones out there.
Camera is very much disappointing because I expected much as sony used the new Exmor RS sensor. First thing was it took about 4-5 seconds to open the camera app. The pictures are just can be said to be average when it comes to sharpness and details. Also the low light pictures are typically pathetic if you compare with iPhone 5, Galaxy SIII and Lumia 920 like phones. Not something special in camera department.
Reception and call quality is great for an expensive phone like this and it performed very well as I expected. It supports all exclusive radios available like 4G LTE and high speed HSPA.
Performance wise it is really really performed well. This time sony didn't used the older chipsets and processor like they done in Xperia S. The phone comes with quad core snapdragon S4 Pro processor that performs incredibly well. In benchmarks it is on top notch. Memory of 2GB is also pretty well, muti tasking is pleasure. But sometimes it gets some glitchy lag in heavy media. Also the audio speakers of the phone is seriously polite.
Software of this phone is pretty well. The phone is 4.1.2 jelly bean out of the box not the latest version 4.2.2. Unlike previous phones of sony this phone is less burgen with sony skin. GUI is now much simpler and but not totally as good as stock android. Themes are quite boring with greyish background.
Battery life is great for a device like this. Androids are notorious for it's battery life. But sony practically made a better feature of stamina mode which boosts the battery life by switching off all unnecessary connections like wifi and 4G when phone is not in use.
Overall I give this phone 7/10. It's a nice phone when it comes to general performance but not the best phone you can get it the market for such a big price tag.
The Breakdown
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Design
7
-
Display
6
-
Camera(s)
6
-
Reception / call quality
8
-
Performance
9
-
Software
7
-
Battery life
8
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Ecosystem
8
Show the rest of this review and the breakdown
